Hieronymus Dungersheim, the Leipzig theologian, who had before this had a tilt at Luther, wrote, with undisguised rudeness in his “Thirty Articles,” against “the errors and heresies” of Martin Luther: “What are your thoughts when you are seated in the midst of the herd of apostate nuns whom you have seduced, and, as they themselves admit, make whatever jokes occur to you? You not only do not attempt to avoid what you declare is so hateful to you [the exciting of sensuality], but you intentionally stir up your own and others’ passions. What are your thoughts when you recall your own golden words, either when sitting in such company, or after you have committed your wickedness? What can you reply, when reminded of your former conscientiousness, in view of such a scandalous life of deceit? I have heard what I will not now repeat, from those who had intercourse with you, and I could supply details and names. Out upon your morality and religion, out upon your obstinacy and blindness! How have you sunk from the pinnacle of perfection and true wisdom to the depths of depravity and abominable error, dragging down countless numbers with you! Where now is Tauler, where the ‘Theologia Deutsch’ from which you boasted you had received so much light? The ‘Theologia’ condemns as utterly wicked, nay, devilish through and through, all that you are now doing, teaching and proclaiming in your books. Glance at it again and compare. Alas, you ‘theologian of the Cross!’ What you now have to show is nothing but the filthiest wisdom of the flesh, that wisdom which, according to the Apostle Paul (Rom. viii. 6 f.), is the death of the soul and the enemy of God.” Dungersheim then quotes for his benefit the passage from the Epistle of St. James concerning the “earthly and devilish wisdom,” notwithstanding that Luther treats this Epistle with contempt; his real reason for refusing to recognise it was that it witnessed so strongly against his teaching. “What will you say on the day of reckoning to the holy Father Augustine [the reputed founder of the Augustinians] and the other founders of Orders? They come accompanied by a countless multitude of the faithful of both sexes who have faithfully followed in the footsteps of Christ, and in the way of the evangelical counsels. But you, you have led astray and to destruction so many of their followers. All these will raise their voices against you on the dreadful Day of Judgment.”[369]